Tag: flour

How long do you think it took me to start baking cut out cookies from the day I bought a couple of sets of beautiful cookie cutter shapes? Two years. Is this normal, or is it just me, looking at them every time I open the drawer and thinking that one day, I will use them for something?
But procrastination aside, there are some amazing recipes out there for perfect cut out cookies and this is one of them. They have the perfect sweetness, brightened with a little addition of salt and even though the edges keep shape, the cookies are still soft and delicious inside.
You can ice them, put sprinkles on them and make them look really colourful but they are perfectly delicious without any icing.

This cookie dough requires chilling for one hour or freezing for 30 minutes. If you want your cookies to keep shape, don’t skip this step.

Take the butter and eggs out of the fridge and wait for them to become room temperature.
In a bowl, using a mixer or some elbow grease beat the butter until it becomes creamy. Slowly add the eggs and sugar and keep mixing so that the mixture is smooth.
Add the vanilla extract and almond aroma if using.
With a spatula, mix in the flour, salt and baking powder.

Roll the dough out on a piece of baking paper, cut the cookies out, take away the excess dough and roll more out on a new piece of baking paper. Continue until you have used up all of the dough. Stack the cookies on baking paper in layers, cover the last one with one more piece of baking paper and freeze for 30 minutes or chill in the fridge for an hour.
You can chill the dough in the fridge for the night, if you need to or you can freeze the cookies, or just a dough ball for later use.

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F.
Bake each sheet with cookies for 10 minutes.

This recipe is just the answer to your prayers about focaccia. It’s an opportunity to stick your fingers in the dough to make holes. It’s the delicious, aromatic bread to stuff your face with. It’s everything you ever wanted!

I made this for my boss who ate like a tonne of it straight away. I had to make more.

So, yeah. I recommend it truly and honestly. Don’t be afraid of the mighty focaccia.

This beauty takes its sweet time rising. But what else would we be doing in life? Isn’t being the slave and invested carer of this delicious bread the best fate we can really achieve?

Ingredients for the dough:

3 1/2 cup all purpose flour

2 tsp dry yeast

1 Tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp fine salt

1 3/4 cup warm water

2 sundried tomatoes

Ingredients for the oil:

1/2 cup olive oil

2 minced cloves of garlic

1/2 tsp thyme

1/2 tsp rosemary

1/2 tsp basil

1/2 oregano

coarse salt

Mix the dough ingredients with a spoon until combined. The dough will be sticky like hell, so just mix with a spoon and cover with plastic wrap. Leave to rise for 1 hour.

In the meantime combine all the ingredients of your oil, except the salt. If you have any of the herbs fresh, go for it, mince them and use. If you only have dried herbs, use those. Fresh is always better but I rarely have all these plants around the house. One or two at most…

After 1 hour spread baking paper on a baking tray. Gently press the air out of the dough and tip it over on the baking paper. Spread it more or less evenly on the tray. Don’t roll it or handle it too much. This dough is like a cat, too independent to accept cuddles. Cover with plastic wrap again and leave for 15 minutes.

Make holes in the dough using your fingers. It’s a good idea to dip your fingers in the oil you prepared to avoid the dough sticking to your fingers.

Leave under wrap for another hour to rise.

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F.

Cover the focaccia with the oil mixture. Follow with coarse salt.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes – until golden brown on top.

Devour!

Have it with mozzarella maybe, some sliced cucumber, tomato, some delicious leaves like rocket/arugula. Have it with parma ham, with olives, with whatever tickles your fancy.

It freezes well. You can microwave it, but do always put a little container/glass of water in the microwave with it so it doesn’t dry out. And don’t microwave for very long.

This is a chewy, soft and rather dense homemade bread that I make often. It’s packed full of pumpkin and sunflower seed goodness and has almost 70% wholemeal flour. It’s delicious with tomato, as a Spanish pan con tomate or homestyle with butter and a slice of ham. Also good with sweet toppings, like jam, for example kiwi fruit jam or persimon jam.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup warm water

4 Tbsp olive oil

1 Tbsp honey

2 tsp salt

1 1/4 cup all purpose flour

1 cup wholemeal rye flour

1 3/4 cup wholemeal wheat flour

1 1/4 tsp instant active dry yeast

2 Tbsp linseed

4 Tbsp sunflower seed

4 Tbsp pumpkin seed

1 eggs for brushing (optional)

Of course you can just put the ingredients in your bread machine and run the wholemeal program but if you don’t have a bread machine or want to make the bread by hand, here are the instructions.

In a large bowl mix together the water, olive oil, honey and salt and stir until the salt dissolves.
Add the flours and yeast and mix until everything is combined.

Place the three types of seed in a food processor and process as finely as possible.

The pumpkin and sunflower seeds are easy to process to complete powder but linseed tends to stay unbroken.
Add the seeds to the dough and knead until the dough feels smooth and pliable.
Leave the dough covered with a cling film, in warm place, for 45 minutes. It should be double the size after this time.
Turn dough out onto a floured surface and knead the dough firmly for several minutes.
Shape the dough into two logs and place in two greased or lined loaf tins.

Make cuts in the tops with a serrated knife. Brush with some egg if you’d like the bread to have a smooth finish.